Parents 'Heartbroken And Lost' After Authorities Accuse Them Of Abuse, Take Baby Away

A Tennessee couple says their infant son has been unjustly taken from them after the child was found to have 33 broken bones and doctors incorrectly assumed he had been abused.

Keshia and Chris Turner’s son, Brayden, was born premature at just 31 weeks, according to Medicalkidnap.com. The child was severely underweight, weighing in at just over three pounds, and has been plagued with developmental problems since his birth.

For that reason, Mrs Turner said, she was upset but not overly concerned when she took Brayden to the emergency room when she found one of his legs slightly swollen and warm to the touch.

ADVERTISEMENT

Thanks for watching!

An X-ray reportedly showed the boy had a broken leg. She said the doctor at the emergency room told her such fractures often happen in children born prematurely and that it could have been from something as simple as a diaper change.

Doctors told her to follow up with her pediatrician the next day.

When she did, Mrs Turner told Medicalkidnap.com, she found the doctor in tears. The doctor reportedly told her that, apart from the broken leg, Brayden also had 15 fractured ribs.

Mrs Turner was contacted by the local sheriff's office while she was on the way to the pedetrician's, and was questioned right after the appointment. Authorities reportedly told the Turners that they needed to take Brayden to see Dr. Deborah Lowen, a child abuse specialist at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville.

Lowen’s examination of Brayden reportedly found 33 fractures, and the Turners say they were told that the only way the child could have sustained the injuries is through abuse.

The Turners maintain that they are loving parents and have never abused their son, but they do want to know what is wrong with him.

But Eugene Wilson, a connective tissue disorder expert, who spoke with the Independent Journal Review, said Brayden’s case shouldn’t just be assumed to be child abuse.

The fractures could be “pathological fractures,” he said, caused by metabolic bone disease or another disorder.

“In the Turner case there are several factors that were not considered by the CA specialist that can have a direct bearing on this issue,” Wilson said. “To have an infant with that many fractures, the child would have suffered severe internal trauma.”

Lowen reportedly declined to talk to the Independent Journal Review about the case.

For now Brayden is in the custody of child services authorities. The Turners reportedly only get to see their son for an hour each week.

They are working to get their son back and have created a Facebook page, titled “Justice for Brayden,” to tell their story.

But right now all they can do is wait. Brayden was 3 months old when authorities took him, and he will be 11 months olds at the Turners' next court hearing on August 4.

“There’s nothing we can do right now because of waiting for court dates,” Mrs Turner told the Independent Journal Review. “We are lost. Heartbroken and just lost.”